Lois: "Wasn't sure I'd actually heard the doorbell! We don't get many visitors here."
Emily: "Hi, I don't mean to disturb you, but I was wondering if-"
Lois: "Are you one of Jacob's little friends?"
Emily: "Is he available?"

Lois: "Jon never was much about going out. Always had some sort of project going, you see. Always was fooling around with those model robots of his."
Emily: "Excuse me?"
Lois: "Why are you standing out there? You'll catch a chill! Come on inside and I'll get you a nice hot cup of coffee."

The woman stepped aside, allowing entrance into her home. Emily paused, unsure if it was such a good idea to comply and idly wondering how long it would take for the police to find her body. She could only hope that she would die in a dignified position, or at the very least be propped into one after the fact. Before her brain had a chance to tell them otherwise, her feet were carrying her inside.

Lois: "You can have a seat over there in the living room. Do you take cream or sugar in your coffee?"
Emily: "Just sugar, thank you. Is Jac-"
Lois: "You're a far cry more polite than his other friends. Bunch of riffraff, they were. Loud, rude--I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out they were all dead now."

Emily smiled warily at the woman, who was already walking out of the room. After a quick glance around, she tentatively sat on the edge of one of the well-used couches. The house smelled overwhelmingly of old wood and stale cigarette smoke, with the underlying scent of something slightly sweet and pungent.

Several minutes passed, then several more. The house was quiet aside from the occasional clink of plates and subdued mumbling coming from the kitchen. Before long the last of the fading sun was gone from the evening sky. At one point, a scruffy black cat padded softly into the room, stared intently at Emily for a moment, then leapt onto the couch next to her where it proceeded to purr loudly. Seconds later, the strange old woman returned carrying a small can of cat food.

Lois: "Here you go, then. A nice cup of coffee to warm you up."
Emily: "Oh, um… thank you. Ma'am, I don't mean to be rude, but-"
Lois: "Nonsense! You're hardly rude. Such a sweetheart you are. Jon would be so proud of how you grew up."
Jacob: "Aunt Lois, don't let the roast burn again."

The woman turned, her expression fluctuating in confusion. She seemed to be momentarily perplexed, as if she'd been suddenly woken from a nap. Finally, she appeared to orient herself and settled on looking determined.

Lois: "No, wouldn't want that to happen. Tell your mother I'll be ready for her to make the salad in about ten minutes."
Jacob: "Yes, Aunt Lois."
Lois: "In the mean time you can get to setting the table. And comb your hair! Your little girlfriend's joining us and you shouldn't go around looking like an urchin."

The woman left the room without waiting for a response, leaving Emily still holding the can of cat food.

Jacob: "We can talk upstairs. She'll keep giving you cat food if we stay down here."
Emily: "If this is a bad time… I mean, if you're going to be having dinner soon, I can come back."
Jacob: "We're not going to be having dinner."
Emily: "Oh. I see."

Emily followed Jacob up the stairs and through a doorway. When she stepped into the small bedroom, the growing unease became nearly full-blown alarm. Beyond the piles of books and papers, past the discarded stuffed animals and an odd assortment of vintage canned goods, were walls covered with scrawled handwriting. The mirror above the dresser was shattered, the shards still lying on the floor. There was a splattering of long-dried blood on one of the pieces with a small area of similar drops surrounding it. It suddenly seemed that Mary would be missing out on that chance to kill her after all.

Jacob: "If I'd had any idea you were going to be stopping by I'd have somehow answered the door myself. Is something wrong?"
Emily: "Everything's fine!"
Jacob: "Oh. Is it the walls? Sometimes I run out of paper."
Emily: "Clever solution."
Jacob: "It works."

Emily: "I came here because I still wanted to talk to you about what you think you know. You ran out the other night before we had a chance to talk. Why did you say that I was on… what did you call it?"
Jacob: "Datura. Because no sane person would first cut their arms open and then try to rip all the flesh off them unless there was some outside factor at work. Jimson weed is notorious for making people do utterly insane things."

Emily: "I wasn't on datura though. I took some sleeping pills right before… everything happened, but that's it."
Jacob: "Sleeping pills that showed up as nothing more than traces of aspirin on your tox screen. Where did you get them?"

Emily: "My now ex-boyfriend gave them to me. It was Valium."
Jacob: "Do you have any idea where he would have gotten them?"
Emily: "He's got all sorts of connections in this town, they could have come from anywhere."
Jacob: "Any chance you still have them?"

Emily: "No, I think they were thrown away or lost at the hospital. I really never gave them much thought because I'd been taking them for so long without any problems that I never considered them as part of what happened."
Jacob: "You said your ex-boyfriend gave them to you. Was he an ex before or after your accident?"
Emily: "Just before."

Jacob: "Was it a new bottle of pills?"
Emily: "Yes, actually. Why?"
Jacob: "Wow, that's cruel."
Emily: "What is? What do you think happened? You're not saying…"

Emily felt the blood drain from her face and wondered if she was actually ready to face the truth.

Jacob: "People take prescription sleeping pills for a lot of reasons. Valium is rather outdated, but good for people suffering from anxieties and has the added bonus of making you forget your dreams. Datura causes hallucinations; many people claim to see everyone they ever knew while on it. Andrew Stone is brutal."
Emily: "How did you know…"

Jacob: "You weren't getting these from a doctor, yet right after you got out of the hospital you started seeing a psychiatrist. You only went for three months, exactly the length of time a severance package would be in effect for. Andrew Stone owned Laine Photography, Andrew Stone owned you."
Emily: "Are you stalking me?"
Jacob: "No. I just see things, remember things; connect them together. Also, Aunt Lois makes me read her the gossip columns in the paper."
Emily: "That's slightly less creepy then."

Emily watched as Jacob suddenly seemed to freeze, his eyes darting wildly from side to side as if listening to unheard voices. A shadow appeared to pass over his face before he turned away from her. Not knowing what else to do, she waited quietly with her back to the door, fully prepared to run screaming if she needed to.

Jacob: "You don't really want to believe me. Right now you're not ready for this, but it's ok. In a few days you'll get it sorted out."

Emily: "What?"
Jacob: "Doesn't matter. Listen, I have to get ready to go to work now. Let me walk you downstairs."

Emily felt muddled with confusion as Jacob led her down the stairs and toward the front door. His theory was completely insane, but she couldn't dismiss it.

Emily: "Thank you. For everything."

Jacob said nothing, simply nodding once before opening the front door.

As Emily walked the short distance between their houses, she replayed the conversation over and over. Everything she'd done since she'd arrived in Deception Pass had been carefully orchestrated by Andrew Stone. As far as she could tell, none of her moves or decisions had been her own. She couldn't help but wonder if the last six months had been any different.